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Roman Punch

A chilled punch made with lemon and orange juice, sugar, rum, champagne or Madeira, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Roman Punch

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Roman Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Juice the lemons and oranges, and grate the rinds of 2 lemons and 2 oranges.

Make the punch

  1. In a pot, combine the juice, rinds, water, and sugar. Boil together and then strain.

  2. Add the rum, champagne or Madeira, and beaten egg whites to the mixture.

  3. Freeze the mixture until solid and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Rum + champagnetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Orange + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped whites add a light, airy, frothy texture to the frozen punch.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and softens the icy texture by lowering the freezing point.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity that defines the punch's flavor.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavor, and keeps the frozen mixture from freezing too hard.

The step that matters

Freeze the mixture until solid and serve. Sugar and alcohol lower the freezing point, so the mixture stays slushy rather than fully solid. Freezing too long makes it hard and icy, while the egg whites need to stay evenly blended for a smooth, light texture.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar, rum, champagne, egg):

  1. Pineapplefits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, rum, champagne, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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